REVIEW / THEATRE

THE SON

Pangdemonium

Drama Centre Theatre/Saturday (Feb 22)

What happens when your teenage son is no longer the happy, lively boy he once was, and turns moody, secretive and erratic? What happens when he is facing a problem you just cannot solve?

This is the agonising quandary in this brutally honest drama about mental health issues, featuring the 16-year-old Nicolas played by local actor Zachary Pang, who in the first moments of the play is revealed to not have been to school for three months.

Written by French playwright Florian Zeller, who has had several other works performed here in recent years, The Son appears at first to be a play about domestic family problems, but slowly unfurls into a disquieting, uncomfortable look at mental health issues among the young, its associated shame and stigma, and the importance of professional help in such circumstances.

Owing to a stellar, nuanced performance by veteran theatre actor Adrian Pang - Zachary's real-life father - whose character Pierre is Nicolas' father, the production takes the script one step further, shining a light on a crisis in masculinity and fatherhood through Pierre's inability to help with his son's troubles.

Pang skilfully navigated the many emotional registers - from earnest compassion, blistering rage, to helpless desperation - which gave tremendous depth to his character, who tries every means possible to address his son's spiralling mental state, while keeping it within the family.

Delivering even the sternest admonitions with self-loathing guilt, Pang's heartbreaking performance here was a masterclass in acting, which also provided the production with a solid pace.

Other characters include Pierre's ex-wife Anne (Shona Benson) and his new partner Sofia (Sharda Harrison).

The set, designed by freelance theatre practitioner Petrina Dawn Tan, was also noteworthy for its depiction of a tasteful, immaculate home, whose layers could be peeled back to reveal more harrowing secrets.

In one lovely symbolic move, a frustrated Nicolas knocked several items to the ground; these fallen items were ignored by the other characters for a significant while, until someone noticed and quietly proceeded to tidy them up.

The moment brilliantly encapsulated the family's inability, perhaps even unwillingness, to notice the underlying destructive forces plaguing the teen, and it would have been great if there were more such instances where the set and props were used so poetically.

In any case, the overall show was a truthful, hard look at the turmoil of mental illness, which can rear its ugly head despite the best efforts from a loving, responsible family.